There was a time when food writers wrote about food. They
were evangelists for a particular cuisine, ingredient, or
dish. Although they took literary excursions into the
French countryside, or to a favorite out-of-the-way
trattoria, their mission in life was to instill in the
reader their passion for the sensuous pleasures of eating
and drinking. They also gave good recipes. If the Sunday
food column of the New York Times is any guide, food
writers now mostly write about themselves.

Early this year the word "I" appeared nine times in the
first paragraph of one such column. "My" pushed the
personal pronoun total into double digits. Two items of
food made a belated appearance at the end of the paragraph.
One was fried chicken purchased from a national franchise.
The food column appearing the Sunday that I am writing this
column has nine personal references, although a richer
variety of them: "I," "we," "my," and "us." No item of
food sullies the prose until the end of the third
paragraph.

My favorite bit of self-referential food writing came many
months earlier, when readers of the Sunday column could
follow the writer's courtship. It began with a rocky bit of
sweetener incompatibility (he liked the artificial stuff
and she didn't). It proceeded through the uncertain middle
stages of meeting the folks and other hurdles true romance
must leap. Then, one glorious Sunday, we saw the beaming
couple on the Times' wedding page. By then we felt
that we knew them so well that a gift would be appropriate,
perhaps something by Julia Child.

I do not object to this mode of writing out of principle,
or even out of nostalgia for more recipes and less author.
It's self-interest. If the market is for writing about food
writers, those of us who lead extremely dull lives —
and wish they were even duller — can never publish a
cookbook. What is to become of a food writer wannabe who
met his mate on a committee and counts staying awake
through a movie as a personal triumph?

One answer is to give up any hope of writing about food.
Another possibility, more venal — hence more
appealing — is to invent an exciting life and build a
cuisine around it. In a shameless act of self-promotion
(I'm trying to get in the groove), here are some cookbook
prospectuses, looking for a publisher:

Cooking on the Lam: Recipes from the Witness Protection
Program
If you're moving around a lot and it is "inconvenient" to
be seen in public for a while, it's hard to get good home
cooking. Me and the little woman want to share with you who
have to "travel" on short notice some quick and tasty
dishes, easily prepared in a motel room. These are
fool-proof recipes, guaranteed to satisfy the inner snitch
without setting off the smoke detector or otherwise
attracting unwanted "attention."

The Gatsby Gastronome: Food Adventures of the Rich and
Fatuous
It was an unusually stifling summer in the Hamptons when
Chip and Muffy decided to try something different. "I'm
bored," said Chip, "whatever can we do that we haven't
done?" "Perhaps something ordinary?" "What," Chip
responded, "we've already tried sex and watching
television?" "I have it!" Muffy exclaimed, "Cooking."
"Capital. I suppose we'll need a kitchen. I think there's
one somewhere in the back of the house." Who could have
guessed that out of that mundane conversation would come
the little-watched PBS series Trivial Cooking with Muffy
and Chip?

Cowboy Jack's Bean Cuisine
Out here in the wide open spaces, with a bunch of cows,
horses, and mean hombres smellin' bad, you might think it's
tough to be a vegetarian. ...

Psycho About Food: Secret Recipes From the Bates
Hotel
As mother always says, even imaginary friends may have food
allergies. ...

Guido, the Gourmet Gangster
Great cooks are "made," not born and they gotta learn to
figure out what to do when something good and fresh comes
their way out of the blue. That's how me and the guys came
up with a real "family favorite" — fish in a jacket.
...